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Higher education institutions, communities, and employers experience challenges as young professionals continually adjust their workplace-participation views and behaviours. Higher education institutions face changes in student demand for job-oriented training, and the associated attrition from established programmes is costly. Communities find it costly to attract young professionals who shift their location preferences, and employers face costly turnover. These entities share an interest in finding ways to effectively meet these challenges. To attract new residents, small- and mid-sized communities are providing relocation incentives. To recruit and retain students, higher education has increased its emphasis on career placement. To reduce turnover, companies and researchers seek to understand employment expectations and desires among job candidates. In an attempt to address the interests of all three stakeholders, this study examines career-related values and decisions of Millennials. Data was collected from 943 business students across 11 four-year Midwestern campuses during two calendar years. Findings identify factors that influence how Millennials search for a job, what expectations they have, and which characteristics they find most attractive in companies and managers. They also suggest those who possess higher self-efficacy differ from those with lower self-efficacy. Implications for employers and broader impacts on their communities are discussed.

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Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the impact of sales education on recent graduates' career preparedness and understand how sales programs might prepare students better for successful sales careers. We investigate the known competencies leading to sales success that were, or were not, adequately developed by their university sales programs. Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected and analyzed qualitative data from in-depth interviews with a sample of 20 recent university sales graduates working in a sales career. Over 23 h [hours] of interviews were transcribed and analyzed via NVivo. Braun and Clarke's (2006) framework was applied in this study to code the data. Findings: The study identifies that while respondents are positive about their overall sales education and feel confident about their knowledge of the sales process, they are not always confident in their ability to deal with ambiguity and the unknown. This study revealed that constructs of self-leadership and career choice self-efficacy deserve further consideration as components of the university sales program curriculum.

Research limitations/implications: As with all exploratory research, there are limits to generalizability; however, this study revealed that the constructs of goal setting, self-leadership and self-knowledge hold promise for further study as a means to increase sales-related self-efficacy and career readiness. Practical implications: Respondents were positive about their overall sales education experience but identified a need for more effective sales education in cold calling, prospecting and the inherent level of rejection to be prepared for inside sales positions in which sales graduates increasingly start their careers. Social implications: Lower turnover and better educational preparedness of sales program graduates clearly will accrue socioeconomic benefits. Originality/value: This is the first study to examine the impact of sales education on recent graduates' career preparedness and the first study for this journal to focus on sales as an area of professional competency and related sales pedagogy. Further, the qualitative methodology, which is relatively unique in sales research, provides rich data that is particularly useful for exploratory research to help provide a structure for universities to strengthen their sales programs through targeted training to help students enhance self-leadership and career preparedness.

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The vision of the world economy has influenced education policy development. Within a world economy, competitive advantage is seen as dependent on having a well-educated workforce. This chapter examines the shift, in the last decade, within higher education policy in Britain, and in many other countries, towards increasing focus on issues of quality. Accompanying this shift is the move from an elite to a mass higher education system. Four interrelated themes dominated the mass higher education agenda: accountability and value for money, maintaining standards, measuring outputs and external quality monitoring (EQM). This chapter focuses on the first three and discusses the impact of quality-policy on the development of an educated workforce. The author concludes that emphasis on short-term gains and the pressure of budgetary constraints will lead to serious long-term consequences for higher education institutions. Show less